


A Guide To Proper Heater Maintenance

by robberreynard



Series: Asphalt Flowers [1]
Category: Fallout 3
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4535961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robberreynard/pseuds/robberreynard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freddie doesn't know why the heater repairman is in his kitchen, but she makes a decent sandwich.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Guide To Proper Heater Maintenance

“Man I want your dad inside me.” 

“Jesus,” Freddie sputtered, nearly choking himself on a mouthful of Nuka-Cola, “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

“Your ma's a lucky woman, that's all I'm getting at.” She moved on from that train of thought with a soft tap of her wrench on the framed photo of Freddie's father, in full Vault security officer regale on the table against the wall. 

Shiloh was one of few girls his age in the Vault, but she was a far cry from the usual crop of giggling airheads he was used to. He watched her as she crouched in front of his heater, the top half of her jumpsuit pulled down to her waist with the sleeves tied around her stomach, leaving her in only a deep necked, sleeveless shirt. Years of heaving around armfuls of machinery had given her upper arms considerable muscle tone. There was hardly a time he could remember seeing her without fifty pounds of scrap metal in tow. It only made sense her GOAT would place her in the maintenance crew.

“What's up with your suit?”

“It's hot as Beelzebub's ballsack below deck,” she answered honestly as she tinkered with a panel of machinery, “I know I look like I stepped off a calender, but try to keep it in your pants. Speaking of keeping it in your pants, how'd your date with Susie go? Saw you two ladies chatting in the cafeteria.”

“It wasn't a date, we just talked. None of your business what I do with girls anyway.”

“Translation; 'I sat there like a stump and Susie realized she made a terrible mistake in her choice of crushes'.” She pulled out a piece of plastic slotted into the front of the heating unit and shook loose a year's worth of dust on her pant leg. Pushing it back into place, she went to work on the labyrinth of wires and screws above it. “Just as well, tired of hearing her get all swoony about you.”

“She talks about me?” Freddie pressed a bit too hopeful.

“Not to me personally. Her terminal went down, took a peek at her diary while I was fixing it. 'July 8, 2270; Freddie sat behind me in class today, I could almost smell that musky cologne. I wonder if he wears cologne? I doubt he would need it, he probably smells that nice all the time',” Shiloh recited in a high pitched voice that sounded nothing like Susie, “And that was the one that didn't make me want to throw up.”

“You actually read her diary? Isn't that a huge violation of privacy? You could get booted from maintenance for something like that.”

“Don't get your panties in a twist, everyone down there reads people's journals when we get the chance. This place is too cramped for privacy. Whatever, check this out-” She turned to face him, pausing for dramatic effect. She then pounded the bottom of her fist in once quick blow against the metal plating. A few moments of slowly building buzzing later, warm air began to circulate the apartment once more. She looked like she was expecting applause, but receiving none, stood and kicked the piece of wall back in place to hide the inside workings of the appliance. Dark smudges of dirt stained her once white shirt, she didn't seem to notice.

“Thanks, I guess,” Freddie muttered flatly, “For giving me a more paranoid way of looking at the tech dorks downstairs.”

“Anytime, Donnie Downer,” she chirped back. 

She tossed her wrench and other tools back into the bright orange toolbox on the floor, but instead of picking it up in preparation of leaving, she left them where they lay and strolled into their kitchen. He sat up on the couch and eyed her in confusion.

“Shouldn't you be going off to invade someone else's privacy?”

“Slow workday, plus I haven't had lunch.” She reappeared from behind the refrigerator door with a package of lunch meat held between her teeth, a jar of mayo, a slice of cheese, and head of lettuce under one arm, half of a tomato and a bottle of mustard tucked in the other. She closed the fridge with her foot. “C'mon Freddie, talk to me a lil', I haven't had anyone but Stan to talk to last couple of weeks and I can only hear about upgrades he plans to make to the butler bot so many times before I wanna stick my head into the nearest oven.”

Freddie pushed off the couch to follow her into the kitchen she was surprisingly familiar with, but couldn't help being a bit dubious as to her intentions. Maybe she was just looking for more gossip to share with her repair buddies. 

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Shit, I dunno,” she sighed and slapped a dollop of mayo onto a piece of white bread, “What are you and Butch and those other jackasses doing with that gang? What was it, Trouser Snakes, somethin' like that?”

“Tunnel Snakes,” he corrected, clearly irked by her little joke. 

“Tunnel Dicks. Wait, no, Dick Snakes. Pillow Biters? What was that name, hmm...” 

“Tunnel Snakes!” 

“That was it!” She smirked at him, sparing him only a short glance from under the stray hair spilling out of her loosely made ponytail, before turning her attention back to preparing food. “Eh, maybe not that one, I really don't care what the Tunnel Shits are up to anyway. Hm. How about we talk about you?”

“Didn't learn all you needed to from my journal?” Freddie scoffed.

“Learned enough.” She idly chewed on a pickle slice as she began haphazardly chopping and arranging the vegetables onto a piece of bologna. “How's the prescription working out?”

There was little point in acting astonished she knew of his malady, not only was she apparently in on all of the Vault secrets, her father was the physician that prescribed those pills in the first place. He could only awkwardly shift his weight and avert his eyes. “It sorta helps. I still have 'moments' but they're not as bad as they used to be.”

“By 'moments' you mean soul crushing claustrophobia, right?” She chuckled to herself. “When your entire world is gray metal and concrete, it's pretty easy to slip into that shitty mindset that your existence is an exercise in futility. Even the lightbulbs start looking gray.”

“Yeah,” he replied softly. 

The last flourish put on her sandwich-a frownie face dotted with mustard eyes-she plopped the bread on top and cut it in half from one corner to the opposite. One half she took a bite of, the other she offered to Freddie. He accepted, even if he had lost his appetite. 

“I know the feeling. Dad almost put me on those things too ya' know.” That time, Freddie couldn't help looking surprised by the admission. Shiloh Watts, the girl with the wry sense of humor and perpetual crooked smirk, _actually_ understood that boxed in feeling that had plagued him since childhood?

“Seriously?” A nonplussed frown creased his brow. “But he didn't.”

“Nah,” she replied through a mouthful of bread, “By that point I had already heard about you needing to take 'em, so I figured he should save 'em for you.”

“But that's stupid. If you really felt like that... Shit, Shiloh, I wouldn't wish that on anybody.” A twang of guilt plucked at his heart, thinking about the years he spent with that immovable weight pressing in on him from all sides. Some days he couldn't even get out of bed, his parents would tell everyone he had the flu, when really he just laid under the covers, petrified. If she felt anything remotely similar, then he would share his Chlorpromazine prescription in a heartbeat.

“I got my own way of dealing with it.” 

She stuffed her sandwich in her mouth and gripped it with her teeth, freeing her hands to fish around in her bra. A few uncomfortable moments later, she produced a small square of folded up paper, and stretched it over the kitchen counter. White fissures ran across the image from repeated folding and unfolding, making the image indistinguishable in some spots. From what Freddie could see, it was a beach scene. Miles of ocean stretched out into the horizon as the sun was sinking into the sea, the waters and sky both cozy shades of red and orange, the waves lapping at the shores. A family sat with a picnic in the sand. In the forefront was a towering palm tree he had only seen in Pre-War holotapes, and in bold, two-colored font, were the words 'Aloha! Missing You in Hawaii!'

Shiloh tapped at the card with her index finger, a touch of excitement in her voice, “Look at that. That place existed, may still exist. Who knows what survived the war? There are _colors_ and life and you can almost feel the sun on your face.”

“It's just a drawing.”

“It's what that drawing represents. There was life before the bombs fell. Lotta people think the Vault Tech cronies were the smart ones, that the only people that survived are the ones hunkered down in this tin boxes, but I don't think that's true. The spark of humanity never goes out completely. Even when it's only embers, it has the potential to come back to life and thrive if it's given the chance.” She gave the picture one more definitive poke. “I know that place survived. And if it can survive nuclear war, you and me can make it too.”

“Pretty blindly optimistic way of looking at it.”

“Blind optimism is all you got in a room with no windows.” She slid the weathered bit of paper towards him. “Take it. I tape it on the wall above my bed, it helps break up the monotonous gray-scale.”

He hesitated, seeing how beloved this must have been for her, but pulled it a little closer, “Thanks, Shiloh... I'll give it a shot.”

“That's my boy.” She skirted around the counter separating them, took hold of his cheek, and planted a kiss on the other, squeezing his head between her lips and hand. Or sandwich, he realized as she smooshed the bread against his face. To be honest, he was too taken aback by the gesture to notice that at first, until she pulled back and wiped the mayo she had blotted on his face off with her thumb in a quick swipe. “I gotta get going, I get off work at eight, I'll pick you up, kay?”

“F-for what?” He watched her in bafflement as she walked briskly back to her toolbox and hefted it up on one hip.

“Dinner date, stupid.” 

With that, she was out of the apartment, leaving Freddie still standing in the kitchen with half a sandwich in his hands. Looking to the counter, he realized she hadn't put away any of her ingredients, and splatters of mayo, mustard puddles, and tomato juice lay in the disarray. He looked down at the portion she gave him to see dirty fingerprints streaking the bread. She hadn't cleaned the gunk from the heater off her hands either. 

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, and he took a bite anyway.


End file.
